Jews, Jesus, and the Problem of Postcolonial French Identity (original) (raw)

In late 2004, the Union des Etudiants Juifs de France (UEJF), the largest French Jewish university students' union, organized a public relations campaign targeting the resurgence of anti-Semitism that began in the early 2000s. The campaign-which was scheduled to run in major French publications-consisted of images of Jesus and Mary "tagged" with the words "sale juif" or "sale juive" [dirty Jew] and subtitled: "l'antisémitisme: et si c'était l'affaire de tous?" [anti-Semitism, what if it were everyone's concern?] (figures 1 and 2). Immediately, the LICRA, the Ligue internationale contre le racisme et l'antisémitisme [International League Against Anti-Semitism and Racism], an anti-racist organization created at the turn of the century to fight Eastern European pogroms, pronounced the campaign "shocking," noting that the association of religious images with anti-Semitic language would "have a counter productive effect and fuel already existing tensions in French society" (Le Nouvel Observateur 2004a). The LICRA demanded that the UEJF cancel or amend the campaign immediately (Chabert 2004). Shortly thereafter, the UEJF's then president, Yonathan Arfi, announced that the media campaign had "already obtained its objective" and would be cancelled (Le Nouvel Observateur 2004b). Insert Figures 1 and 2. Certainly, the UEJF's choice of imagery was provocative and surprising. The use of Jesus and Mary seemed to highlight the irony of Christian anti-Semitism at a time when scholars and political observers insisted that contemporary French anti-Semitism was "new," no longer the work of Catholics or ethno-nationalists, but of Muslims and recent immigrants (cf. Brenner 2002; Finkielkraut 2003; Taguieff 2002). More surprising still was the reaction the images provoked. The Catholic Church offered no official condemnation, refusing to say anything since the ad was never formally launched. Instead, the LICRA, a group with close ties to French Jewish institutions, objected to images Arfi called "fundamentally Christian" (Chabert 2004). Why would a group affiliated with Jewish interests work to stop the UEJF's campaign? What might the LICRA have seen that so alarmed it? And why pay any attention to this seeming tempest in a teapot? What, if anything, can these unseen and un-seeable pictures of Jesus and Mary tell us about the relationship between the fight against anti-Semitism and national identity in pluralist France? Following a long anthropological tradition (e.g. Gluckman 2014; Gluckman 1940; Scott 1987; Turner 1996), I use this conflict over representation to explore what some groups thought should neither be seen nor said about the relationship between France and its constituent religious groups. However, I do not and cannot offer a positivistic analysis of this conflict. 1 As we will see below, Arfi may never have fully understood the LICRA's objections; and the LICRA itself was both contradictory and opaque about its concerns. Furthermore, none but a handful of militants [active organization members] ever engaged the images. Nevertheless, I suggest that understanding why the campaign could not be seen offers insights into the limits of I would like to thank the men and women of the UEJF in the mid-2000s, and most particularly Yonathan Arfi, for taking the time to teach me about their organization, interests, and concerns. This article has benefited enormously from the time, care, and critical sensibilities of a number of colleagues and mentors, particularly John Comaroff, Joanna Davidson, Naomi Davidson, and Robert Weller. I also would like to thank Public Culture's two anonymous reviewers, who helped me figure out what this article could and could not do. All translations are mine, as are all inaccuracies and analytical defects.